Ball State University

An electric arc kiln furnace project slated for Muncie is dead. As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, the city says immense community opposition played a major part in cancelling the to-be-built plant.

City officials say the Muncie Redevelopment Commission will buy back a brownfield on Kilgore Avenue now owned by Waelz Sustainable Products and say they are working through “an exit strategy.”

Ball State University is raising its tuition by a smaller amount than it suggested it might a few weeks ago. But, as IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, a new fee for online classes could raise that cost significantly for some students.

Ball State University officials proposed a 1.64 percent tuition increase at a public hearing last week, which was just under the non-binding recommendation from the Indiana Commission for Higher Education.

Researchers are seeing more kinds of fish in the Ohio River than they were in the 1960s. A Ball State University study in collaboration with Virginia Tech says part of that may be due to less agricultural land bordering the river and more forests.

Ball State University’s governing board says it will not take the name of the Papa John’s pizza chain founder off a business program at the school. As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, several area universities have had to consider actions after something the Ball State alumnus said.

A Ball State University economic forecast says the United States has fully recovered from the Great Recession and growth is coming. The annual prediction also shows slow growth in Indiana, especially in the state’s manufacturing sector.

Ball State economist Michael Hicks predicts the national economy will grow by 2.1 percent next year. Compared to other national forecasts, that’s conservative – some predict up to 2.4 percent growth.